It was a "Bingo" moment. We were south of New Plymouth and needed somewhere to park up for a few nights before the Easter Rally started.
We noticed on our map a little unnamed road which lead to the coastline.
Being us , we had to have a look , and "Bingo".
The road went to a sports ground.
A club house , grass to park on and a freshwater tap alongside the mouth of a little river.
There was Alec fishing for herrings and small kawhia for bait for his longline.
He has lived here for 60 odd years and very ernestly asked me "not to tell everybody about this place".
His dog brought a stick for me to throw.
Thats two "Yeah Rights" in a row.
The river met the tide with a never ending surge of current and foam.
This tide had washed in a new driftwood log to add to the 100's already ashore.
The foreshore had an amazing collection of small driftwood.
Literally 1000's of pieces sized from 200mm to 1200mm.
Then there were the large stumps and logs or "feature" pieces as we call them.
They would look great in the courtyard of one of the Mansions.
The beach is quite a few km's long.
In the south is the flat topped headland where the wreck of the 'Garlock" lies.
At our feet is a more modern wreck of a good size Crayfish.
Who or what ate the rest of it we will never know.
To the north can be seen "Nga Motu"or the Sugar Loaf Islands , a Sanctuary and Conservation Park.
These islands lead into New Plymouth harbour.
The day ended in a golden glow thanks to mother Nature.
We were very happy chappies and settled down for a quiet evening.
Look at the next blog to see that episode.
The next morning the tide was out.
The eastury was now a rocky river with long deep pools , ideal for a quiet swim out of the surf.
A lady "rock hound" went by looking for a local rarity , pink pebbles and the semi precious quartz and agate.
The river mouth now cut through a sandbank on its way to the sea.
The photo is a bit dark but the bank on the right is thick with the little driftwood I spoke about earlier.
The tide seems to go out a long way compared to up north.
With still 2hours of outgoing tide to go, rocky banks were appearing , with the some large boulders and the odd enormous one appearing.
The stump in the fore ground was the hightide line.
Shoals of rock can be seen about halfway out.
The first of the big rocks surprised us with the large black patches we could see.
On closer inspection we found they were black mussells.
Thousands of them , 10 to 15mm long and they seemed to be healthy.
Further out the rocks were totally covered in them and low down they were 60 to 70mm long.
They were served for dinner that night along with the mushrooms picked fresh from the playing fields that morning.
Cheers.
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